Each October, five or six blocks of Payne Avenue become something rare: a free, open-air gallery and cultural celebration where thousands of neighbors and visitors encounter powerful art, live music, and poetry right on their own street. We're thrilled to announce the return of Solidarity Street Gallery for its seventh year — and to invite you to be part of it.

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This year, our theme is Common Ground.

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Our 2026 Theme: Common Ground

What does it mean to take loving care of our one shared home — planet Earth — and to find common ground with one another across the lines that divide us?

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Common Ground is a deliberately wide invitation. It holds room for awe and for alarm, for celebration and for protest, for the cosmic and the intensely local. It welcomes the artist who finds the sacred in a single seed and the one who marches for clean water; the tender and the urgent; every medium, culture, and point of view. It asks us to consider the literal earth beneath our feet — soil and stone, root and river, the air we breathe and the water we drink — and the harder, more hopeful work of finding what we still have in common. Here on the East Side, a proud environmental-justice community, that question feels especially close to home.

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Festival at a Glance

Over three days, Payne Avenue transforms into a tapestry of creativity, community, and connection:

• The Street Gallery — juried fine art in storefronts and windows up and down the Avenue, turning everyday shopfronts into a walkable, open-air exhibition.

• The Invited Gallery Exhibition — a curated show of accomplished local and regional artists whose work anchors the festival's theme, on view at ArT @ 967 Payne.

• Live music, poetry & spoken word — performances that fill the Avenue, from an opening-night set to featured acts across the weekend.

• ADDED THIS YEAR — The Environmental Mini Fair — a lively Saturday gathering where environmental, cultural, and educational organizations bring hands-on activities, take-home resources, and ways for neighbors to care for our shared home.

• Cultural celebrations & community voices — programming that honors the many cultures who call the East Side home, including a Dakota opening and Indigenous artistry and storytelling.

• Open doors along the Avenue — galleries, studios, and businesses welcoming visitors in, all weekend long.

 

Free. Open to all. Rooted in the cultures and community of Saint Paul's East Side.

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Building on a Legacy

Since its founding in 2020, Solidarity Street Gallery has grown into one of the East Side's signature arts and cultural celebrations — a platform for artistic expression, community connection, and the vitality of the Payne Avenue corridor. Each year has centered the many communities who call this neighborhood home:

• 2020 — racial justice and equity, in solidarity with the African American community

• 2021 — Indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice

• 2022 — the resilience of our Southeast Asian and immigrant communities

• 2023 — building bridges across our neighborhood's many voices

• 2024 — memories of migration and displacement, and stories of hope

• 2025 — We Belong Together: the connections that bind us

• 2026 — Common Ground: caring for our shared home, and for one another

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Get Involved

Solidarity Street Gallery is built by and for this community — and there's a place for you in it:

• Host the festival at your business or site. Turn your storefront into a gallery, host a performance, or offer a festival special. We handle the art and logistics; you provide the space and a warm welcome.

• Join the Environmental Mini Fair. Environmental, cultural, and educational organizations are invited to table with hands-on activities and community resources.

• Become a sponsor. Individuals, businesses, and organizations can help keep the festival free and fairly compensate the artists who bring it to life — at any level, from a small gift to an Official Sponsorship.

• Sign Up to Volunteer. Lend a hand before or during the festival — from setup to greeting visitors — and be part of the team that makes it all happen.